[Starship Modeler's fourth on-line modeling contest: starships & vehicles from written sci-fi.]

By Pat Flannery

Ornithopter

[In flight]


[Wings folded]

[Bottom view]

Scale: 1/72
Source: Dune by Frank Herbert

Here's my entry for the contest (wouldn't you know that someone else would also enter a thopter? Should have made Shield's Helicarrier.)

I always liked Frank Herbert's book DUNE, with it's exotic futuristic technologies. I thought it would be fun to make a model of an Ornithopter ( or 'Thopter as they are called in the book) but didn't know how to get the organic, almost "living" look, that I thought one should have...until I spotted a model of the submarine Seaquest. It was a very strange design for a sub, but the perfect starting point for a 'thopter. It looked like something fairly large in size so I decided to do one from House Harkonnen - The Baron's yacht so to speak, in 1/72scale. I thought this was getting pretty big for one pair of wings, so I gave it two to accentuate the dragonfly-like look of it.

The tail assembly is a "roll bar" off of a U.S.S. Reliant kit with cut down jet engines from a TU-22 "Blinder" model. The wings are made from sheet styrene, and fold up so that the aircraft can be hangered easily.Gun turrets are cast metal from a Mechwarrior spare armament set. The nose has a flight deck built into it for four people and is covered by a tinted canopy made from two "snow shaker" paper weight domes. The rear of the ship houses Baron Harkonnen's private Throne Chamber (his throne and globe of Dune are visible in the top part of the close up photo.)

The model is 19 inches in length, with a span (diagonally) of 28 inches. It stands 27 inches high on its stand. I wanted some thing striking to hold the model in flight position, so I bought a World Globe, drilled out holes every thirty degrees in latitude and longitude, built up relief with super glue (matching the map in the book) and produced a replica of the Baron's Globe of Dune that he plays with in the book.

Small plastic jewels represent the cities and polar caps. Chrome wire was strung into the predrilled holes after the globe was painted. The House Harkonnen name plates are much modified designs from the Dune 2000 Computer game. They were printed onto a sheet of high grade paper, sprayed with Krylon lacquer to waterproof them, then cut out and attached to the stand with thinned down Elmer glue used like wallpaper paste. The wing markings on the model are made the same way.

Image: Front view, in flight

Image: Front view, wings folded

Image: Closeup of throne room

Image: Model with replica Crysknife for scale. Knife is also scratch built.


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This page was last updated 28 November 2000